The question perplexed me, and it was only years later that I understood the implication.

What the editor meant was "Hey, you've graduated from college and have a good job as a journalist, AND you're a Hispanic woman. Your poor underprivileged parents must be beaming.''

The editor meant no insult, but he, like many, bought into the notion that if your parents aren't born in the U.S., you must suffer from some deficiency.

The idea that I was different from anyone else was completely foreign to me because I never heard that growing up. Not from my teachers, and certainly not from mom and dad, successful Cuban emigres.

That's why the idea of affirmative action is so offensive to me. The author of a new bilingual children's book shares my view.

In "Joey Gonzalez, Great American,'' Tony Robles tells the story of a third-grader who dreams of studying hard, learning a lot and growing up to be a great American.

Then one day, his teacher says that because he is something called a "minority," he isn't smart enough to become a great American on his own. But there was something called "affirmative action'' that could help him compete.

According toTony Robles, a Puerto Rican who grew up in New York, affirmative action has hurt many black and Hispanic children, who learn early on that they will never get the credit they deserve for working hard and trying to succeed on their own, so why bother?

The author writes, "My mother didn't tell me I was a minority and so a victim, a second-class citizen who needed to be treated differently from everyone else. She taught me that learning and diligence were the keys that would free me from poverty, but affirmative action policies have seduced an entire generation of black and Hispanic kids into believing that special preferences are a necessity and a birthright.''

I couldn't agree more. How can a society justify government-sanctioned discrimination against qualified applicants because they don't fit a racial or ethnic profile?

If universities, or employers, choose the not-so-qualified over the qualified to fill a quota, the strength of our nation's future workforce will diminish.

Worse yet, this policy harms the very people it is intended to help by putting a label on a segment of society: It implies that the person lacks the intellectual capacity to make it on his own.

Looking toward the future, why should my American-born children receive special treatment when they apply to college, when they have had the same advantages as their Anglo classmates. Because their father and grandparents were born in another country?

I'm all for letting a child win a board game sometimes to spare his feelings. Four-year-olds are obviously at an intellectual disadvantage.